FIFA World Cup 2026: England Tournament Thread [R]

In the nations league games we should 100 percent be looking to integrate dowman and Ngumoha in. No excuse about age. We need to move away from the likes of rashford now as he rarely imposes himself on games. And the same with madueke

 

Feels too early for Dowman he might be barely getting PL mins,

 

Tuchel

"We got too passive within our structure. I tried to help, not to become more passive with a back five but to be more active, to be quicker out to the wingers, not to open up the gaps between the back four.

"We encouraged everyone to step out, to be more active within the structure, but we just struggled.

"We couldn't find any duels any more which was why we dropped deeper and deeper, which was never the plan but it happened.

"We needed to get back on the ball otherwise you cannot break the pressure and you cannot get the momentum back.

"I think ball possession plays a crucial role. It's maybe not in our DNA like it is in the Spanish DNA or Argentinian or Brazilian DNA to take the ball, control the game and the ball, which is also a big problem."

 

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...2026-world-cup-semi-final-argentina-euro-2028

‘But Tuchel, who signed a contract extension in February to carry him through the Euro 2028 campaign, remains determined and retains the FA’s backing. Asked whether he wanted to take the team forward in the next two years, he replied: “Yes, 100%. There is still enough to improve and I am more than happy to do that. I’ve loved every day of the World Cup.

“I said after the quarter-final win against Norway that I see a disconnect from what I see in training on a football level and within the games. We can impose ourselves more on the ball. We can show what good football players we are. That is still in us as I see it in training and in every camp. And here also at the World Cup. I still feel there is an extra level that we need to conquer. We need to step up to the next level to get the big prize.” ‘

We got too passive within our structure,” Tuchel said. “I tried to help … for us to actually be more active in a back five, to be quicker out to their wingers. We encouraged everyone to step out, to be more active but we just struggled. We couldn’t find any duels any more, which was why we dropped deeper and deeper. It was never the plan but it happened. We couldn’t stop the runners from the second line, the midfielders through our gaps. And their deliveries were on the highest level.

“We needed to get back on the ball otherwise you cannot break the pressure and you cannot get the momentum back. We just couldn’t cope with the momentum swing. Ball possession plays a crucial role. It’s maybe not in our DNA like it is in the Spanish DNA or the Argentinian or Brazilian DNA – to take the ball and control the game.

 

Kind of doesn’t make sense though, he chose the squad, he left out many technical players and chose players like Rice with respect who really isn’t very good in possession and he should surely know that but he likes his physicality. Players like Rogers are not really good technically in possession. I’m not sure I really get what he’s getting at to be honest, just sounds very confused imo. He picked Henderson for gods sake!

 

His whole embargoed press conference quotes are annoying me and make me more and more annoyed.

 

Tuchel has also got his excuse in for the third place match by saying how we have a day less than France. I bet he is thinking we going to be pounded in that,

 

Thomas Tuchel is being very cunning here. He's blaming the players for his substitutions (they'll see that, and won't like it.) He's within his rights to say England don't keep the ball as well as other top nations in big knockout games, but he's casting himself as a bystander. pic.twitter.com/Il6PyhCjIl

— Paul Hayward (@_PaulHayward) July 16, 2026

 

Me neither Barry. It was shocking management. He didn't know his best wingers from the start of the tournament. Saka has come up with moments of brilliance for us at tournaments and he doesn't even give him a single minute in this game.

 

It’s almost like he didn’t understand the players he was picking knowing their strengths and weaknesses.

 

We all think we will get stuffed in that. He needs to change the team a lot because tired players get injured.

 

The guy could say squares are round if he wanted, it wouldn't mean it's true it would mean he's deluded. He chose to sub defenders on and sub wingers/midfielders off. He chose to leave our best possession players at home.

If he can't see the impact his own choices had it's a problem.

 

A problem is that FA need to do a better job of attempting to prepare possible candidates for the role.

The pool of English managers at club level is too thin and unreliable. The FA can control the quality of the pool of coaches within its system but it fails in that regard.

Every youth appointment from U16-U21 level needs to be taken seriously but that isn't the case. Because of how few good English club managers there are, every U21 manager needs to be someone who is seen to have the potential to manage the senior team. They obviously won't all be good enough to do that but that should be the aim. We can't have another situation where someone like Aidy Boothroyd is in charge of the U21s.

The reality though is that if Lee Carsley left tomorrow they'd appoint a woefully inadequate option from within like Ben Futcher, which immediately weakens our pool of options for the senior job. The FA luck out on a good coach every now and again but most of their youth team appointments are a joke. It's like they don't take the process seriously at all.

 

It is bizarre. It was always strange that the FA appointed the Bayern manager who couldn't win the Bundesliga with Kane.

 

Team for the France game…

Trafford
Quansah
Chalobah
Burn
Spence?

Mainoo
Eze
Rogers

Watkins
Toney
Noni

Im not looking forward to see how this goes if he’s picking the fringe players. This would be awful against a French B team even….

 

Burn should not be playing. It is a nonsense if he does.

The 3rd place game is an anachronism anyway. Should be scrapped.

 

Saving him for the final third place game.

 

For sure he is 1000% deluded but I think he also realized way too late that his midfield has massive limitations. Two things can be true at the same time. If the argument is he left home players that could do what he is now saying this midfield could not do then thats on him. If he thinks he brought the best possible players and they need to be better at doing what he see's in training in an intense high level game then he could have a point.

Jude Anderson Rice were the universal choice as starters I think it would take a really brave manager to build around a lesser midfield that has a different profile. Spain does not have to select their 7th best midfielder because all of their top 6 are of the same player profile. That is a development issue. The only thing that is for sure is that the same pattern has occurred for decades and predates Tuchel for whatever reason even if he was obviously not the man to solve it.

 

Ok, so this is an argument if Argentina was a worse team than England or not. I said we cowardly lost to a "worse team". I should have said cowardly lost to a "worse team before we collapsed". I stand by that, we were better than them for 85 minutes, because we were up 1-0. And I still think we cowardly lost to a worse team. Do I expect a Canadian Italy fan to agree? Not at all. It is a subjective opinion and anybody can disagree. Tuchel should resign.

 

**** the third place game. It means almost nothing. Ok, by winning you might have a better chance being one of the four teams FIFA wants in the semis for the next WC. But other than that it means nothing.

 

Tuchel is to blame. He fu*** this up. And even if it was the players that parked the bus, it is still his fault. You cant talk **** about Bellingham after what he did against Norway.

Tuchel can be replaced, Bellingham not.